MARFA — The Chinati Foundation presents its 37th Chinati Weekend this Friday, October 11, through Sunday, October 13. Highlights of this year’s programming include an exhibition by Zoe Leonard, a solo performance by Kim Gordon, special guests Lynne Cooke, Natalie Diaz and Dolores Dorantes, and an open studio event with current artist in residence Willie Binnie.
A gathering started in 1987 by Chinati’s founder, the artist Donald Judd, this annual tradition offers visitors an opportunity to deepen their engagement with the foundation through open viewing of the collection, studio visits with artists, and public programs such as readings and concerts.
Chinati Weekend 2024 marks the opening of the first exhibition of Zoe Leonard’s Al río / To the River in the Americas. On view through June 2025, the photographic work follows the course of the Rio Grande/Río Bravo where the river is used to define the boundary between the United States and Mexico. Leonard’s work contemplates the intricate cultural, social, political, ecological and economic landscapes that comprise the 1,200 mile stretch of river from Ciudad Juárez and El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico and poses the question: What does it mean to ask a body of water to perform a political task?
Additional highlights include a conversation between Leonard and Lynne Cooke, a friend and collaborator who currently serves as senior curator in the department of modern and contemporary art at the National Gallery of Art; and readings by poets Natalie Diaz and Dolores Dorantes. Diaz was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 2021 for her collection Postcolonial Love Poem, and Dorantes previously collaborated with Leonard on a book of photographs and experimental writing titled El Río / The River.
In addition to the aforementioned events, all of which are free and open to the public, Chinati will host a ticketed Benefit Dinner and After Party on Saturday, October 12, the proceeds of which support Chinati’s year-round operations. This year, Chinati is thrilled to present After Party music by Veteranas & Rucas, Quecholatanrica, and PROXYGENTE, an experimental ruido-cumbia project by Mateo Galindo and Jon Lujan. Taking place in the Arena — a former military gymnasium that Judd restored in the mid-1980s — the celebration will raise crucial funds for Chinati’s core initiatives: to present its collection to a broad public; to build community and support artists through public programs, artist residencies and exhibitions; and to care for the art, architecture and land that Donald Judd conceived as integral to Chinati.